


Like Rain

by azurefishnets



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I also guess, Musical musings, highly symbolic flowers, i guess, sort of angsty, sort of fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 04:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17891786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurefishnets/pseuds/azurefishnets
Summary: Volfred mourns and Tariq waits.





	Like Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).



Tariq strolled through the woods, hat pulled low over his eyes, lute cradled protectively in its case against the slowly falling rain. Spring in the Black Basin was a mercurial affair, entirely dependent on the wind currents and thermals blowing off the hotter lands to the east to determine whether it would be unusually hot or never-endingly humid in any given star’s turn. This appeared to be a damp year; the air was rich and redolent with the smell of the black loam and the fungal life that had begun to encroach as winter retreated and spring made its claim on the land.

As he crested a small rise, the trees seemed to grow thicker and more clustered around him, the gloom of the thicket walling him in until little light and no rain could penetrate the stygian depths. There, in the deepest wood, he found his quarry: a Sap, positioned under one faltering beam of flickering sunlight, just enough rain able to penetrate the canopy above to nourish his deeply-rooted feet.

His own hands covered the Sap’s face—the bark was beginning to grow together between his fingers and in the junctures where they covered his eyes and mouth. He had not moved in some time; certainly he had not moved since Tariq had come last. Tariq’s lips flattened a little. That the leader of the once-proud Nightwings should be reduced to this was frustrating even if, he hoped and trusted, it was only a temporary state of affairs. The Scribes’ plans were as impenetrable as this thicket to the mortals they affected; Erisa’s treason had further muddied the waters.

Tariq could not but pity Sandalwood, but without the Liberation Rites, he and Celeste were purposeless and adrift as well. Thus, as fate decreed, he drifted or slept as seemed necessary, and once a year, he circled back to the greening wood. But on a second glance, something was strange; the leaves that clustered around Volfred Sandalwood’s nape were green and flourishing, obviously enjoying the slight trickle of rain, but tiny white buds also appeared to be growing as well. Perhaps buds, at any rate. Tariq’s focus was not botany, particularly, and mortals, even long-lived ones, were always confusing. Could it be some fungus, some strange Sap disease?

He cast his mind back to the few previous times he had come here; there had been nothing like this, but the last few springs had been rather hotter than this one. It had not been raining either. Tariq shrugged. Whatever the growth, it was not a thing he would understand without a conversation with the one he’d come to see. Perhaps, if the Scribes’ will dictated, that particular chat would happen this year.

Tentatively, he put a hand to the Sap’s shoulder. “Volfred, sir? The world awaits the Nightwings. Will you sleep even yet?”

There was no sound except the slow seep of water as it dropped onto the crown of the Sap’s bowed head, rolled down his hands and arms and trickled into and out of the network of knots and whorls on his body. Tariq was unsurprised. It had been ever thus since his once-companion had hidden away from the betrayal and loss atop Mount Alodiel.

He could hear Celeste’s voice now: _“Why let him wallow thus, Tariq? Wake him and let us return to our duties.”_

The part of him that resonated with her, always, agreed, but the part that was here and now decreed a softer approach. He sat, back leaned against Sandalwood’s roots, and tuned his lute. A sorrowful air, then, for another year, and a slow journey through the Downside before he would see his erstwhile companion again. Perhaps he would not come back, the next year. Consistency was only owed to Celeste and to the Scribes. A lone Sap, hidden in the woods, was not his purpose. And yet even as Tariq thought it, his nimble fingers adjusting pegs and checking strings without cogent awareness, he knew that thought for the dissemblance it was.

Tariq played, a slow dirge for friends lost. Unbidden, far from conscious thought, his hands began another tune as the elegy ended—the piece he’d always thought of as the music of Volfred’s own heartbeat. It spoke of a new world waiting, freedom to be won, plans to be made. His face upturned to the flicker of starshadow through the darkening foliage, eyes closed as the day dried, the last of the cloudy afternoon turning to a clear evening. His old friends above lent their voices and their light to the notes that poured from his fingers.

A soft pattering all around him returned Tariq to the quiet of the wood around him. The gentlest of touches, a soft caress on his face—he opened his eyes. Although Volfred stood as still as ever, hands still covering his face, the tiny buds were blooming and dropping away, drifting downwards like falling tears or rain. Tariq reached out a wondering hand and picked a fallen flower up, the petals already curling inward. He thought he recognized them as the flowers the Scribes had named moonfall blooms. Milky white, with a fluff of petals and tiny golden centers—they had been rare in the Downside in the Scribes’ time and had disappeared entirely, a pitiful collateral of their many battles. Tariq had thought never to see them again, but here they were: a tiny miracle falling all around him.

He chuckled. They were a sign, he supposed, from the Scribes, or his brethren, or perhaps Volfred himself. _Don’t give up just yet._

“Very well, Volfred, sir,” he spoke softly, letting a small handful of the drying blossom run through his fingers. “I take your meaning plain. I shall return in a star’s turn and trust as ever that you know your path.”

Searching through the drift of snow-white blossoms, Tariq picked three of the most perfect. One he put in his lute-case, for the notes to warm and remind its owner that although sorrow could and would pass, music would remain. One he put securely tucked into his hat brim, to travel in the open air, a reminder of freedom. The last he held in his hand, staring at it for so long that he began to be conscious of the slow scudding of star-pulse in his ears. Finally, without examination of his motives in doing so, he put it in the small pocket on his lute-case strap which ran over his chest, closest to his core, where that pulse resonated most strongly. Perhaps the words that were the heart of him would hearten a Reader as well.

 _“Let the words be read once more; let the Reader find what he seeks,”_ he thought, as he left the darkened grotto, and whether it was a prayer to the Scribes or just an errant hope, none but the herald himself could say.

**Author's Note:**

> You just thought I was done with the Volfriq, ahahaha! But I could not let @laughingpineapple's birthday go unremarked, and what better way to celebrate it than with some pining (sorry) from our favorite bunch of words for our favorite Sappy professor.
> 
> Happy birthday, my friend, and may your year be as wonderful as you are!


End file.
